Ship
carrying US arms heads for GulfPort Said (Egypt), November 24A US-chartered ship carrying heavy
weaponry, including tanks, passed through the Suez canal today heading
for the Gulf, as Washington continued its military build-up for a strike
on Iraq, canal authorities said.

Pervez to
revive statute by Dec 31Islamabad, November 24The Pakistan President Gen Pervez
Musharraf has promised to revive the Constitution fully from December
31, which would activate the Anti-Defection Law that he had kept in
abeyance to enable Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali win the election for post
of the Prime Minister with the help of defectors from the Opposition.

Pak denies
arms deal with N. KoreaIslamabad, November 24Pakistan today strongly denied a
report that it had helped North Korea develop its nuclear weapons
programme in return for missile technology that would strengthen its
hand against India. “There is no truth in these reports
whatsoever,’’ said presidential spokesman Major-Gen Rashid Qureshi.

Assassination
bid on KarzaiWashington, November 24A plot to assassinate Afghanistan
President Hamid Karzai and Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim was foiled
after security forces in Kabul arrested a 22-year-old Iraqi Kurd
trained in the PoK with a large amount of explosives strapped to his
body, a report said here today.

India’s Miss World contestant Shruti Sharma arrives at London’s Gatwick Airport on Sunday. The beauty contestants flew to Britain after the organisers of the annual pageant decided to move the competition to London from Nigeria following religious riots.
— Reuters

Syria’s
no to USA on closing jehad officeCairo, November 24Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara
roundly rejected US pressure to shut down the Damascus office of
Islamic jehad, saying the Palestinian militant group did not use it as
a base for planning attacks, in an interview to appear this week.

Port Said (Egypt), November 24
A US-chartered ship carrying heavy weaponry, including tanks, passed through the Suez canal today heading for the Gulf, as Washington continued its military build-up for a strike on Iraq, canal authorities said.

The Scan Arctic, registered in the Isle of Man, was also transporting aircraft jet engines and lithium batteries, considered to be “radioactive substances”, the same sources said.

The equipment, from the US military base at Wiesbaden in Germany, was destined for Camp Doha, another US base in Kuwait.

US military forces pre-position equipment at desert bases in Kuwait and Qatar.

Over the past two months, the number of US servicemen and women in the Gulf region had soared to around 50,000, about 400 military aircraft were now stationed there and at least three aircraft carriers and their assorted escort ships were on their way.

While inspectors mandated by a tough UN Security Council resolution have yet to start work hunting for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, US military planners have been evidently keen to have all their pieces in place should they get the order to attack, with or without UN backing.

The optimum time for any such campaign would be during winter or very early spring — before the crushing heat and machine-clogging dust of summer.

The huge logistical transport operation to the West Asia by the US military would involve around 50 chartered freighters.

BAGHDAD: Washington is seeking to use the declaration that Baghdad is due to present concerning its alleged weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for military action, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said.

In a letter addressed to UN chief Kofi Annan, Sabri made several “remarks” about tough modalities for the UN arms inspections due to resume on Wednesday after a four-year hiatus in line with UN Security Council resolution 1441.

Sabri said the clauses related to the arms declaration that Baghdad was asked to hand over by November 8 aims at “distorting the position of Iraq and using the (declaration) to launch an aggression against Iraq.”

“Considering any omission by Iraq as a material breach means that there is pre-meditation in targeting Iraq, under any futile justification,” he said.

Under the resolution, Baghdad was to supply full details of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapon programmes to the UN by December 8.

It had consistently denied developing such weapons, prompting US President George W. Bush to say that “lying” would lay it open to military action.
AFP

Islamabad, November 24
The Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf has promised to revive the Constitution fully from December 31, which would activate the Anti-Defection Law that he had kept in abeyance to enable Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali win the election for post of the Prime Minister with the help of defectors from the Opposition.

General Musharraf has proclaimed through a back-dated order before swearing in of Jamali yesterday that the rest of the constitutional provisions, including the Anti-Defection Law, would come into operation after the poll of the Senate, likely to be held by December 25.

The entire Constitution, including the clauses that guaranteed the fundamental rights of the people would be restored by December 31, The Nation said.

On November 15, General Musharraf partially revived the Constitution which incorporated his controversial amendments empowering himself and the Army.

The complete revival of the Constitution could pose a threat to the longevity of Jamali’s Ministry as it survived by a slender margin of 172, which was one vote more than the required majority in the 342-member House.

As of now, Jamali is comfortable as the House has operational strength of only 334 members. The by-elections for the rest were expected to be held within the next two months.

Given the importance of the 10 dissidents of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) headed by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Jamali has accommodated six of them in his 21-member ministry that took oath yesterday, giving Cabinet portfolios to three, which included the powerful Defence and the Interior Ministries.

The important Foreign Ministry has been given to PML-Q member Khurish Mehmood Kasuri who was also previously a contender to the Speaker’s post.
PTI

Islamabad, November 24
Pakistan today strongly denied a report that it had helped North Korea develop its nuclear weapons programme in return for missile technology that would strengthen its hand against India.

“There is no truth in these reports whatsoever,’’ said presidential spokesman Major-Gen Rashid Qureshi.

“I do not know where New York Times gets its information from. I am convinced that they need to update their intelligence gathering system,’’ he told Reuters.

The newspaper said in a report on its website yesterday that the relationship between North Korea and Pakistan “now appears much deeper and more dangerous than the USA and its Asian allies first suspected’’.

Quoting unnamed sources in Washington, Pakistan and South Korea, it reported that Pyongyang had provided Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf with missile parts allowing him to build a nuclear arsenal able to reach “every strategic site in India’’.

In return Islamabad provided North Korea with designs for gas centrifuges and machinery needed to make highly enriched uranium for the country’s latest nuclear weapons project.

“If the country has cooperated (with North Korea on nuclear weaponry) we would have known,’’ General Qureshi said.

“When these reports first came out I spoke to the president, so it is not as if we do not know about them,’’ he said.
Reuters

Washington, November 24
A plot to assassinate Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim was foiled after security forces in Kabul arrested a 22-year-old Iraqi Kurd trained in the PoK with a large amount of explosives strapped to his body, a report said here today.

The militant — Bokan Akram Khorani — had 18 pounds of explosives taped under his vest and “had been trained and assigned to carry out a suicide mission,” said Amrullah Salihi, spokesman for Afghan National Directorate of Security.

Khorani had been sent to assassinate Karzai on his return from a trip to the USA last week, but he reached too late to ambush Karzai and switched to a plan to kill Fahim, Salihi said adding that he volunteered numerous details about himself and his suicide mission after his arrest on Friday.

He had been “casing” the neighbourhood where Fahim lived when he was captured, and that the police had been watching him since he arrived in Kabul from Pakistan several days ago, the Post said quoting the Afghan official.
PTI

Unidentified Miss World contestants check out of the Hotel Nicon Hilton in Abuja, Nigeria,
on Saturday, before departing for London. The Miss World pageant has been relocated to England from Nigeria after over 100
persons died in days of rioting in the city of
Kaduna.
— AP/PTI photo

Lagos, November 24
The death toll after four days of riots pitting Muslims and Christians in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna jumped to more than 200, a senior Red Cross official said today, more than double the previous estimates.

The fighting was touched off by a newspaper article about the Miss World pageant. The contest, which was to be held in Nigeria next month, has been moved to London.

Emmanuel Ijewere, president of the Nigerian Red Cross, said the relief organisation had by yesterday counted 215 bodies on the streets and in mortuaries throughout the city. Previous estimates had put the death toll at about 100.

An unknown number of others who died in the riots were believed to have been buried individually by family members, Ijewere said.

By today, a tense calm was reported in Kaduna. The fighting, which began on November 20 and continued until yesterday, left about 500 persons injured and 4,500 homeless, Ijewere said.

At least 22 churches and eight mosques were destroyed in the rampage, said Shehu Sani of the
Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress. Ten hotels were also badly damaged, said
Sani, whose group estimated that “well over 200 persons” had been killed.
AP

Cairo, November 24
Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara roundly rejected US pressure to shut down the Damascus office of Islamic jehad, saying the Palestinian militant group did not use it as a base for planning attacks, in an interview to appear this week.

“The Islamic jehad office in Damascus is uniquely an information bureau and those who work there have no links to military activities or planning operations,” Shara told the weekly Al-Osbou newspaper.

In the interview, Shara underlined that “those who are on Syrian territory, far from the terrain, cannot plan operations that take place in Palestinian territory.”

The US State Department said on Tuesday it would keep up pressure on Syria to close down the office, a few days after the militant group claimed responsibility for an ambush in the West Bank town of Hebron that killed 12 Israeli security personnel.
AFP

GLOBAL MONITOR

BUS PLUNGE KILLS 33 IN PHILIPPINES
MANILA: At least 33 persons were killed and six injured when a Philippines bus plunged into a ravine early on Sunday after its driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel, officials said. The bus tumbled 50 metres into a dry river bed at Tagkawayan, 185 km south of the capital Manila. Bus companies have been criticised in the local media for not changing drivers frequently enough on long trips.
Reuters

ENDEAVOUR STREAKS TOWARDS ORBIT
CAPE CANAVERAL: The space shuttle Endeavour streaked towards orbit after weeks of delay, carrying up a new set of residents and another massive building block for the international space station. NASA had feared storms in Spain might postpone the flight for the second day in a row. But in the end, the rain held off at one of the two overseas emergency landing strips and managers cleared Endeavour and its seven astronauts for takeoff on Saturday.
AP

ARTIST’S BID TO SAVE BEIJING’s MEMORY
BEIJING: Equipped with a simple camera, 71-year-old Beijing resident Lu Baohua is striving to record a world that is disappearing fast. The retired artist has spent four years taking thousands of photos of hutongs, the capital’s traditional narrow alleys of single-storey homes, which once filled large sections of its central districts. Lu, pedaling around the city of 13 million on his well-worn bike, is in a constant, tightly-run race with the demolition crew.
AFP

50-YR JAIL FOR SCHOOLGIRL’S MURDERER
LONDON: A British man sentenced last year to life imprisonment for the kidnap and murder of an eight-year-old girl Sarah Payne was ordered by the government to serve 50 years behind bars. The decision, brought by Home Secretary David Blunkett, means Roy Whiting, 43, will almost certainly die in jail. Blunkett has been under public pressure to toughen jail tariffs for child killers and paedophiles.
AFP

LAVA FLOWS TOPPLE SKI LIFT ON MT ETNA
ROME: Lava flows toppled ski lift towers and threatened to engulf a tourist refuge on the Etna volcano on Italy’s southern island of Sicily. But an Italian civil protection official said the situation was not serious. “The lava is advancing very slowly and for the moment, I don’t have any particular concerns,” Guido Bertolaso, head of the regional department of Italy’s civil protection service, said on Saturday in a television interview.
AFP

NEPAL HIKES PETROL, LPG PRICES
KATHMANDU: The Nepalese Government has hiked the prices of petrol and LPG aimd protests from the opposition parties to make up for the heavy losses incurred by the Nepal Oil Corporation. The Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand announced the decision yesterday. With the new rates effective from yesterday the price for petrol per litre is Rs 32.50, (Indian currency) which is a 13.4 per cent increase. The price for gas per cylinder is Rs 406.25 (Indian currency), a 18.18 per cent increase.
PTI